I've been thinking about this recently, admittedly after watching some History channel specials on alleged UFO sightings/encounters/whatever. I guess I'm still on the fence about this. It just seems like, even if 99.999999% of UFO sightings/whatever are false, one of them has to have occurred in some shape or form at some point, right?

What does everyone think? I want a legit discussion here, with neither crackpot theories on the one hand nor a priori rejections of aliens on the other.

[Edited on November 29, 2008 at 12:48 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2008 12:47:34 PM

chit-chat?

11/29/2008 12:49:28 PM

Quote :

"if 99.999999% of UFO sightings/whatever are false, one of them has to have occurred in some shape or form at some point, right?"

There aren't enough uncertain UFO sightings to really make this true.

I personally don't think aliens from another planet have visited, but I won't really argue the point (unless it's obvious a particular instance is not an alien sighting) because someone I respect swears up and down they saw a UFO.

11/29/2008 12:51:59 PM

I do, but I don't think they've "visited" us.

yay N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

11/29/2008 12:52:22 PM

Of course aliens exist. Whether or not they have visited our planet or not is a completely different question though. If you consider how many stars are in our galaxy (literally hundreds of billions), there has to be at least one star that has one planet (aside from Earth) that supports life. And even beyond that, there are millions of galaxies out there, each containing their own sets of stars. Probability dictates that there must be life elsewhere in the universe.

11/29/2008 12:56:46 PM

100% sure aliens exist. whether or not they are intelligent (compared to us) probably less than 0.5% chance.

The universe is way to big for there to not be other life forms.

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

11/29/2008 12:58:43 PM

not sure about aliens

but def ghosts

11/29/2008 1:29:33 PM

uh dude. theres no such things as ghosts.

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

11/29/2008 1:37:54 PM

Yeah, aliens are much more likely than ghosts.

I believe in aliens, not sure about intelligent aliens or encounters, and certainly don't believe in ghosts.

11/29/2008 1:43:43 PM

I think most UFO sightings are just unidentified military aircraft in that they are unidentified to the public. Most of them seem to occur near or around military bases. In fact, the Stealth Bomber was mistaken for a UFO for years until it was finally unveiled by the military.

Do you believe aliens exist? Probably somewhere, odds are against they don't. But as others have said, I doubt they've visited Earth yet. And if they were intelligent enough to have the means to visit Earth, I don't think they would. We would either be deemed to dangerous or not interesting enough to make contact with yet.

11/29/2008 2:17:49 PM

I definitely think that aliens exist.

That belief, however, existed before I saw a UFO driving home from high school one day.

11/29/2008 2:33:26 PM

I do, but I don't think they've "visited" us.

11/29/2008 2:38:08 PM

I'm going with yes, using the shear numbers argument stated earlier.
I don't think we've ever been visited though. Too much time + distance.

The one time I thought I did see aliens was a mistake.
Turns out they were from France.

11/29/2008 2:39:03 PM

correct me if my math is wrong, but don't the very odds which state that, "the universe is so big something must exist" conversely mean that there is only a 1/(universe) chance that they'd actually find us?

11/29/2008 2:48:11 PM

Quote :

"Do you believe aliens exist? Seriously.....I want a legit discussion here, with neither crackpot theories....nor a priori rejections"

Quote :

"chit-chat?"

I think it's very telling that the first response in this thread was basically "Despite stating four different ways that you are serious about this, are you sure you're really serious about this?" People's instinct is that any discussion about extraterrestrial [intelligent] life must somehow be, well, like the original poster put it, crackpot theories.

I've seen much evidence, but none first-hand. I believe that it is certainly possible, and perhaps even likely, but I have a skeptical mind, and until I see some really compelling evidence, (as in, live coverage of alien ships landing, or something,) I won't go as far as to say, that "I believe."

11/29/2008 2:51:59 PM

Quote :

"I do, but I don't think they've "visited" us. yay N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L"

For those that have no idea what that is, it's the Drake Equation. It basically speculates on assumed variables the number of extraterrestrial civilizations that exist in our galaxy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html <== has a cool calculator

11/29/2008 2:54:47 PM

Here's an interesting article I just found related to the topic:

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/sugar-molecule.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp

11/29/2008 3:07:02 PM

Quote :

"whether or not they are intelligent (compared to us) probably less than 0.5% chance."

assuming that was said in jest. the idea that there are beings with different sensory abilities and capacities that far surpass our own is entirely possible. there are also theories of beings with a much more complete awareness of the universe (including multiple dimensions) than we can barely scratch the surface of or even fathom. think about the sensory limitations we have in comparison with many animals and insects within our own planet.

.02

11/29/2008 3:21:18 PM

yeah the drake equation is meaningless, because we have no way of knowing, and will have no way of ever knowing any of the components.

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

11/29/2008 3:32:31 PM

Not related, but...
The Drake Equation would be a great name for a band.

11/29/2008 4:29:50 PM

I definitely believe that other life exists in the universe.

Do I think that it will be proven during our lifetime? No.

Do I think that we have been visited? Not really.

11/29/2008 4:44:00 PM

there is a huge, huge difference between believing aliens exist, and believing any of them have ever visited us or if any UFO sightings are alien activity.

It is almost a statistical certainty that aliens exist elsewhere in the universe, and likewise, almost a statistical certainty none of them have ever visited earth

11/29/2008 4:54:29 PM

sure I believe they exist, I doubt however that they care about our feeble human lives.

11/29/2008 4:59:14 PM

"Civilizations either become space fairing or extinct." ~ Carl Sagan

11/29/2008 5:00:22 PM

I believe aliens exist because back in the day when I had a green card (which was actually pink) it said resident alien...so it must be true! The government doesn't lie.

11/29/2008 5:41:00 PM

I think the universe is so big that there must be other forms of life elsewhere. However, I doubt there being anything more advanced than the various life forms found on our own planet out there.

11/29/2008 5:52:59 PM

I hate it when religious fanatics try to throw the Bible at me when I try and explain that aliens must exist somewhere in the universe. Then they try to demean me by saying "So you are saying there are little green men flying around in flying saucers out on Mars?"

11/29/2008 5:55:59 PM

I've said this before, but I'll annoy you all with it again. The chances of not only a civilization with space travel but one who has then traveled to visit us is SO much smaller than the chances of just another intelligent species with a civilization, and even smaller than the chances of just another intelligent species who are, say, hunter-gatherers.

Consider a species even 1000 times more intelligent than we are who has been around much, much longer. Assuming that they are intelligent enough, they still need so many things to be able to invent space travel: complicated speech, organized and motivated citizens and leaders (well, at least citizens), the necessary materials and fuels, and, the one we don't think about as much, appropriate limbs and something similar to an opposable thumb, combining to create a grasping system. Or, of course, some form of psychokinesis or other method of making something as intricate as a space travel system.

I'd say the chances of other species, probably far more advanced than we are mentally, is pretty high. At least, that is, the chances that they ever existed. You then have to consider whether they exist now and whether they have the qualities I mentioned, not to mention tons of others I didn't mention or can't think of myself. There could be super-intelligent gasses and fish out there (see dolphins) that couldn't ever create even a city, much less a spacecraft.

And, you can consider the example from Hitchhiker's Guide, where there could be tons of species who live on parts of the universe where they see nothing in the sky and therefore they never even consider traveling into space.

11/29/2008 6:16:12 PM

the grammar errors in this thread are overwhelming

11/29/2008 6:33:22 PM

I think it would be pretty self-centered of us to believe that we are the only intelligent life in the universe.

[Edited on November 29, 2008 at 7:34 PM. Reason : a]

11/29/2008 7:33:58 PM

I think something strange is/was going with UFOs. I doubt it's all simply nonsense, as many claim.

11/29/2008 7:43:22 PM

Quote :

"Of course aliens exist. Whether or not they have visited our planet or not is a completely different question though. If you consider how many stars are in our galaxy (literally hundreds of billions), there has to be at least one star that has one planet (aside from Earth) that supports life. And even beyond that, there are millions of galaxies out there, each containing their own sets of stars. Probability dictates that there must be life elsewhere in the universe."

Plenty of people use the "lots of space" argument, but they ignore that the universe has a lot of something else - time. The universe has been around for 14 billion years. It's likely that aliens have existed at some point, but it's not likely that they're around right now.

11/29/2008 9:38:51 PM

If you take into account the size of the universe (or even our own galaxy) and how little we know about what lies beyond our solar system, it seems pretty arrogant to think that there is not life somewhere, in some form. If such life exists, who knows what form it would take? As for the religious aspect, the Bible doesn't say there is or is not life somewhere else. I don't see the conflict. To Christians, the Bible is the Word of God as given to us, and to be sure there is knowledge that wasn't given to us.

11/29/2008 9:43:52 PM

Quote :

"not sure about aliens but def ghosts"

11/29/2008 11:26:38 PM

I believe in aliens and ghosts.

And a lot more that would make you go .

11/30/2008 12:01:53 AM

Quote :

"I think it would be pretty self-centered of us to believe that we are the only intelligent life in the universe."

And who's to say what we think of as ghosts are aliens?

11/30/2008 12:04:33 AM

Quote :

"Probability dictates that there must be life elsewhere in the univers"

Probability never dictates anything. There can be no other planet like Earth in the galaxy, or there can be 100 of them, but there doesn't "have" to be any other planet like Earth in the galaxy.

11/30/2008 12:15:06 AM

there is most definitely other forms of life on other planets elsewhere in the galaxy and universe (hell, there might even be forms of life in our OWN solar system that we have yet to discover)

It took just the right set of circumstances for humans to develop the ability to think like we do, and i would guess that intelligent life would be very rare, but out there somewhere, but probably beyond any means of communication.

11/30/2008 1:48:44 AM

I would say that if there are intelligent life forms on other planets, they could have had like a billion years of head start in evolution/technology/etc. they'd be so advanced that they're probably hiding in some extra dimension and can go anywhere in space-time that they wished instantaneously, alter history, etc.

11/30/2008 4:19:57 AM

So, assuming that intelligent alien life does exist, I wonder if those aliens believe in ghosts?

11/30/2008 8:21:39 AM

there might be
there might not be

Thinking about it is more of a waste of time than posting on TWW.

11/30/2008 8:34:13 AM

^ my thoughts exactly.

11/30/2008 10:28:28 AM

"There may be worlds rich in life not yet evolved to intelligence and high technology; there may be civilizations that achieved technology and then promptly used it to destroy themselves; and, perhaps, there are also beings who learn to live with their technology and themselves, beings who endure and become citizens of the cosmos."

-Carl Sagan

[Edited on November 30, 2008 at 11:02 AM. Reason : a]

11/30/2008 11:02:27 AM

"Greetings from heaven everyone. I know I said the universe has Billions and Billions of stars...but apparently there are no aliens.

On the other hand, I did find out that the Kennedys did kill Marilyn Monroe.

Go figure."

11/30/2008 12:05:15 PM

I had no idea there were this many people that actually believe aliens exist

11/30/2008 12:47:44 PM

Quote :

"The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations. The extreme age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggest that if the Earth is typical, extraterrestrial life should be common.[1] Discussing this proposition over lunch in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi questioned why, if a multitude of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the Milky Way galaxy, evidence such as spacecraft or probes are not seen. A more detailed examination of the implications of the topic began with a paper by Michael H. Hart in 1975, and it is sometimes referred to as the Fermi-Hart paradox.[2] Another closely related question is the Great Silence[3]—even if travel is hard, if life is common, why don't we detect their radio transmissions? There have been attempts to resolve the Fermi Paradox by locating evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, along with proposals that such life could exist without human knowledge. Counterarguments suggest that intelligent extraterrestrial life does not exist or occurs so rarely that humans will never make contact with it. Starting with Hart, a great deal of effort has gone into developing scientific theories about, and possible models of, extraterrestrial life, and the Fermi paradox has become a theoretical reference point in much of this work. The problem has spawned numerous scholarly works addressing it directly, while various questions that relate to it have been addressed in fields as diverse as astronomy, biology, ecology, and philosophy. The emerging field of astrobiology has brought an interdisciplinary approach to the Fermi paradox and the question of extraterrestrial life. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

[Edited on November 30, 2008 at 1:38 PM. Reason : more]

11/30/2008 1:28:00 PM

this interests me

11/30/2008 6:45:33 PM

I would like to point out this list

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxevent.html

11/30/2008 7:38:21 PM

why

11/30/2008 7:43:54 PM

to add context to that 99.999999 idea
there are thousands of reports each year

11/30/2008 7:49:56 PM